The Tea Sugar Experiment
by ScopesMonkey
Summary: John hides the tea sugar.  Sherlock wants to know why.  Pre-slash, leading up to John/Sherlock established relationship, set in between the first and second parts of "Rain".


**A/N:** For those of you following along the timeline, this is set between the first and second scenes in "Rain", so it is actually pre-slash and pre-John/Sherlock established relationship, but getting there. I do not own, nor do I profit from. Enjoy!

* * *

"John!" Sherlock hammered on John's bedroom door, open-palmed. "John!" He glared at the wood, as though he could burn through it and speed up John's reactions.

"Just a minute!" a muttered voice came from the other side.

Sherlock hammered again.

"I can bloody well hear you, Sherlock!" John shouted back, then yanked the door open, hair in disarray, since he'd obviously just pulled on some clothing rather hurriedly – his jumper was on back to front and his jeans were wrinkled, not a clean pair, then.

His expression was annoyed, dark, but with a hint of concern in it, which faded almost immediately to surprise.

Sherlock ignored this. Why would John be surprised? He had clearly heard Sherlock shouting his name, and no one else was in the flat. It wasn't as though they didn't know they lived together or didn't see one another every day.

"Where is it?" Sherlock demanded.

John just stared at him a moment longer, a strange expression on his face, then he gave his head a little shake, his eyes clearing somewhat.

But something lingered in them, something Sherlock could not identify.

"Where is what?" John asked, sounding put-upon, which Sherlock knew was affected. The doctor crossed his arms over his stomach and leaned against the doorframe.

"The sugar, John, where have you hidden the sugar?"

John blinked.

"Sorry?" he asked.

"It's not funny!" Sherlock huffed. "I am in desperate need of a morning tea! Where is it?"

"I didn't move the sugar, Sherlock," John replied. Sherlock enjoyed the way 'sugar, Sherlock' sounded, the flow of the words, the slight hint of annoyance that put more emphasis on his name. Then he wondered why in the world he'd thought that or noticed it – it was completely irrelevant.

"It's not where it should be," Sherlock retorted.

"Maybe you moved it then?" John enquired, gesturing vaguely to Sherlock. There was something still off about his expression.

John had been acting odd lately though. Sherlock had noticed this but hadn't paid much attention to it, because John was not injured, nor had he suffered any traumatic personal shocks lately, unless he was counting Sarah's breakup with him. But that had been seven weeks and three days ago – not that Sherlock had kept count, he just knew these things – and John had not seem particularly fussed about it. A bit disappointed, perhaps, but not upset, not torn up. There had been no drama, no tears, just a fairly level 'that's that, then', when he'd come from Sarah's flat that day.

Plus, Sarah was _boring_. Utterly and amazingly boring. Sherlock wasn't certain how anyone could be that dull. And why John had enjoyed it. Objectively, Sherlock thought Sarah was an attractive woman, which he supposed resonated with John. He himself didn't care – women were not at all his area, although he could recognize good looks when he saw them, because he was still a consulting detective and a quite brilliant genius.

If it had been only physical, Sherlock doubted John would have stayed with her as long as he had, and John had seemed to enjoy actually spending time with Sarah. Again, Sherlock didn't understand this, because Sarah was boring, so how could spending time with her be at all enjoyable?

John had never done any of the normal things to indicate to Sherlock he was upset about the break up – no change in routine, no moping about, no constant talk of Sarah (which would have forced Sherlock out of the flat), no loss of appetite or sudden increase in eating or drinking.

It was as if John had barely noticed Sarah leaving his life.

_Good_, Sherlock thought.

But it didn't explain John's strange behaviour.

It also didn't explain where the sugar was.

"Oh," John said then and Sherlock refocused. "We've run out. I meant to pick up some yesterday and forgot."

"You forgot?" Sherlock demanded. "How could you forget? How am I to have tea now?"

"I forgot because we were busy chasing that bank robber through a maze of alleys in the rain," John replied with what Sherlock thought was an excessive amount of sarcasm. "And you can have tea with honey, if you need it sweetened."

"Honey?" Sherlock sneered. "Foul."

"Then without anything," John suggested.

"Just as bad! And anyway, I can't find the sugar tin, there may be enough left for me to scrape by."

John rolled his eyes.

"It's on the counter, genius," he said.

"No, it isn't, I checked."

Pushing himself away from the doorframe, John clattered down the steps to the flat's main level, Sherlock right on his heels, taking care not to actually trip John up. The doctor led them into the kitchen and pointed to the mess of dirty dishes left from the night before.

"Here," he said, plucking it from the pile, passing it over to Sherlock, that same strange look in his eyes. "Nothing left."

Sherlock snatched it and pulled off the lid, then huffed in disappointment and disgust. He upended it over his teacup but only a few grains came out.

"Brilliant," he sighed.

"You could always go buy more," John said, crossing his arms, his eyes fixed on Sherlock's face with what Sherlock considered an unusual amount of focus for the doctor. As though he were trying to ignore something else? Curious.

"Too busy," he said, evading the possibility of being forced into grocery shopping, which was mundane and far beneath his obviously superior intellect. "Honey will have to do. Where is it?"

John sighed and pulled open a cupboard, tossing a small plastic jar at Sherlock, who caught it easily. Sherlock turned, ignoring John, and tried to deduce how much honey he'd need to accurately replicate the sweetness he preferred from actual sugar. He heard John go back upstairs, but ignored him.

Really, the man could be so strange.

Sherlock fixed his tea to his liking, more or less. It was passable, not perfect, but it would have to do until John got more sugar. Sherlock sent him a reminder text and was somewhat surprised to hear a muffled curse coming from the floor above him. Ignoring this as well, he went into his own bedroom, sipping the tea, and selected a shirt that was appropriate for the weather, the season, and the fact that he had to upstage Anderson that day.

* * *

He was still thinking about John's odd behaviour that night, after the doctor had gone to bed, grouching about Sherlock playing the violin at all hours. Really, Sherlock had warned him before John had moved in. What had he thought Sherlock had meant? That he had a confined time in which to play? He played when he needed to think. He didn't stop thinking on John's schedule.

So he prowled the flat, because John was really being quite annoying about sleeping and his inexplicable need to do so. Sherlock tried to find something to do, but it was too quiet. He had heard John roll over in his sleep once, the faint creak on the floorboards as the weight on the mattress changed. At least John was sleeping well lately – no nightmares. These had the unfortunate side effect of making John more irritable in the mornings, and, even worse, they woke Sherlock up sometimes. It was most distressing.

He went into his own bedroom and fluffed up the pillows on his bed uselessly, because he had no intentions of going to sleep, then stalked back into the livingroom, snagged the skull from its place on the mantle, and went back into his bedroom. If he started talking to it in the livingroom, John might wake up and moan and whine and complain about Sherlock being unreasonable.

At least John had himself been reasonable and had bought more sugar.

"What shall we do about the doctor?" Sherlock asked the skull, who grinned back at him. "He's distracted. This is unacceptable. It's distracting when he's distracted. I do need him to focus on cases. Your opinion would be welcome, as always."

Silence. The best kind of opinion.

Sherlock decided to change, at least, to get out of these clothes that now felt stale, and into something more comfortable. He pulled out a pair of pale grey silk pyjamas and tossed them easily on the bed, then unbuttoning his shirt. He was about to throw it in his hamper – laundry was so tedious, perhaps he could pay Mrs. Hudson to take care of it for him? – when he realized why John had been giving him such odd looks that morning.

He had gone up to John's room shirtless.

Well, so what? John was a doctor. _Surely_ he had seen people in much more detailed states of undress and it hadn't bothered him. And he was not an inexperienced man – unfortunately Sherlock knew _that_ from Sarah, although he would have known it less empirically if she hadn't been around, because John was not unattractive, nor was he entirely dense. So, reasonably, he had seen people without shirts on.

And they were flatmates. It wasn't as though Sherlock was running about completely unclothed. He'd been wearing a very sharp but respectable pair of trousers and socks, so he'd been more than half dressed at the time.

And it wasn't even as though John hadn't seen him like that before. Sherlock disliked doctors but was willing to suffer John examining him when he was injured during a chase or a confrontation.

"He's maddening and unreasonable," Sherlock told the skull, who kept its own counsel on that.

Really, John needed to have a bit more sense.

Sherlock decided perhaps he would try and sleep, so as to ignore this conundrum with John. He changed into his pyjamas and lay down, closing his eyes, resting his palms together, touching the tips of his middle fingers to his chin and put John out of his mind altogether.

* * *

He awoke in the middle of the night, half sitting up before he realized he was even awake, the memory of a pair of bright, dark eyes still burning in his mind. Of a smooth French voice, laughter in low tones. Of dark hair, always rumpled. Of a lazy, not-quite-insolent smile.

Charles?

Why had he been dreaming about Charles?

He hadn't thought of Charles in – Sherlock did some quick mental arithmetic. Eleven months and fourteen days. Fifteen now; it was after midnight.

So why now? Usually, the memory of Charles did not assail him without warning, and Sherlock usually had some good reason to recall his former lover. It wasn't as though Sherlock had ever missed him. Nor had Charles missed him, he suspected. When he thought of him, it was in passing, generally because someone or something reminded Sherlock of the Frenchman.

_Dear Charles_, he thought. _Piss off_.

He lay back down, displeased with his brain that seemed bent on undermining him, and then snapped his eyes back open when he recalled the first time he and Charles had ever seen each other. Sherlock had never been fussed about social niceties – people created complicated dances and chains and puzzles for themselves that were so _unnecessary_. If he wanted to shag someone, why not just do so? The first time he'd seen Charles, Sherlock knew that was what he wanted to do, and the look Charles had given him had suggested precisely the same.

Those dark eyes, bright with desire.

Close.

Close, but not quite what he'd seen in John's eyes.

_Oh, bollocks_, he told himself. _That is utter nonsense._

Was it?

_Of course it is!_ he snapped at himself. _It's John. And besides, sod him. I told him I wasn't interested in relationships. And he had Sarah, so he should stuck with that if he wanted anything else._

He must be wrong. Sherlock nodded to himself. Yes, that was it. It was so rare that it was no wonder it felt strange. But it had been known to happen, on occasion. John was just odd, with his tolerable little quirks and his strange ideas about decency and modesty and how to behave. Now Sherlock _did_ miss Charles, who hadn't bothered with many of these things, either. Why were people so unbelievably thick? It was infuriating that he had to spend so much time sorting through murky motivations that were born of indistinct desires and dislikes. If only people – John – could learn to think _properly_ so that Sherlock could put his considerable intelligence to better use than deciphering pesky emotional details.

"He'll just have to sort this out on his own," he told the skull. The skull said nothing.

* * *

Three days later, the sugar was gone again.

Sherlock stood in the kitchen, the cupboard door open, his fingers still wrapped around the handle, staring at the empty space where the small red tin with its ridiculous tartan pattern should be.

He checked the cupboard carefully, then closed it, and this time made sure to go through the pile of washing up that was waiting beside the sink.

It wasn't there.

He checked all of the other cupboards, in case he himself had stashed it somewhere else, then the fridge, and then the freezer as a last resort.

It wasn't anywhere.

John had moved it.

This time, he'd done it deliberately.

What was he playing at? Was he trying to be insufferable? Because it was working quite well.

Sherlock considered his options. He could resort to the honey again, but this was not at all acceptable when there was actual sugar to be had, somewhere in the flat. He could go buy more, which meant doing a chore. He could demand John return it.

Which was probably what John was after.

Sherlock snorted, displeased, but if John wanted to play this game, fine. His distractions were mildly amusing at best, and he wouldn't hold out for long, because he had to go to work, and Sherlock was not above calling him all day, on his office line if need be, until he got what he wanted.

He left the kitchen and was halfway through the livingroom before he paused, standing still a moment, then heading into his bedroom.

He divested himself of the blue silk shirt, hanging it carefully back in the closet, then went up the stairs, knocking on John's door.

The look in John's eyes was stronger this time, and Sherlock felt a stab of triumph followed by a much more unfamiliar shock of confusion. He wasn't sure what to make of all of this, nor what he wanted from this revelation – other than the location of the sugar, so he could have a proper cuppa. But John did nothing other than grin and return the tin, closing the door again, leaving Sherlock in the hallway with the tea sugar.

He looked down at the old tin and frowned.

This would take some careful consideration and, possibly for the first time in his life, he did not know where this contemplation might take him.


End file.
